Liam Fox spills the beans... on what he does all day

The international trade secretary said those who think he has nothing to do are mistaken.

Early on in his career, Alan Partridge kicked off a radio interview with the Duchess of Stranraer by asking what she actually did during the day.

"What a lot of us would like to know is, as a royal, what do you do?"

At the Conservative Party conference, Liam Fox is the political equivalent of the Duchess of Stranraer. With the UK not yet outside of the European Union, the international trade secretary cannot sign any free trade deals. As a result, nobody is quite sure what he does.

So, at a fringe event with the Tory cabinet minister, it fell to broadcaster Iain Dale to play Partridge and pose the question on everyone’s lips.

He asked: "What do you do all day?"

Fox revealed that he spent most of his time "looking at opportunities" for British exporters.

He added that people claiming he doesn’t have much to do "clearly do not understand much about trade because trade agreements are only part of what happens".

And he insisted that free trade deals would be on the table quite soon, anyway.

Asked if Britain would be in a position to have trade agreements ready to enforce at the end of the Brexit transition period, Fox said: "We expect to have draft agreements long before that with a number of countries.

"We want the EU transitional ones done by 2019 and then at that point we want to see the United States, Australia and New Zealand which are the priority ones."